This was a topic that came into discussion in my film theory class while we were on the subject of two dimensional and three dimensional films. In earlier years, when film was in it’s birth stage, it mostly was two dimensional. Yet it was interesting how people could be invested in a two dimensional world, perceiving it as three dimensional even though clearly it wasn’t. I guess that would be one of the positives of having an effective story and good shots that allow us to be physically placed in the story. But over time, we seem to be interested in making the worlds created in film more and more life like so we could physically place the audience right there in the story. This was where the idea of three dimension came into light. Now it’s becoming more of a constant norm, so naturally people would want to try experimenting with new ideas just to place the audience even further in the story. And while I will say this isn’t necessarily a bad idea I do have to wonder about the idea of this wonderful piece of technology that would allow for the audience to be engaged in the story. We watched a video in my class about the Oculus Rift, which as some of you might not know is the new virtual reality goggles that you wear and actually place you in the world. This piece of technology has been used for video games but is actually experimenting with making films for it as well. That was what this video talked about. Apparently some of the developers have been in the works for making films for the Oculus Rift. They even mentioned some of the benefits of this new found technology. Now I have seen videos of video gamers on YouTube playing video games on the Oculus Rift, and while I will say it’s not the best as far as graphics go it still is pretty amazing that this even exists. But with that said, that brought up a good point that I didn’t even realize until after we talked about it in class. If the point of making films for the Oculus Rift is engage the audience members in the world and the story itself, then wouldn’t it technically be the same as a video game? When you get right down to it, there’s really not that much difference between the two. Video games allow the player to be immersed in the world and interact with it’s characters. Basically like what these designers are tying to make with these films. With the only difference being the audience member not being physically engaged in the story like what video games do.
But what do you think?
Nicole Rousseau 